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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195212">Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelynMoon/pseuds/AngelynMoon'>AngelynMoon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Depressed Steve, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Sort of suicidal Steve, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tissue Warning, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, attempted comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:41:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,795</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195212</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelynMoon/pseuds/AngelynMoon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They were supposed to have time.</p><p>If this needs tags let me know.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark, Steve Rogers &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They find him after the battle is done, after Tony has used the Stones to take care of Thanos' army.</p><p>It had been Tony who had wondered aloud where Barnes was and then noticed the Steve was also absent.</p><p>Worried for his team mate, no matter the state of their friendship they had all gone looking for the two supersoldiers.</p><p>It was Peter who found them, his small, tear filled voice that told Tony where to come.</p><p>At first sight Tony thought that neither man lived, but as he ran closer he realized that Steve was shaking uncontrollably where he lay next to Barnes, head on the man's shoulder, hand over his heart on a very still chest.</p><p>Tony stopped himself abruptly, unable to bring himself to get closer.</p><p>The sobs Steve was letting out were quiet, the pleas were not.</p><p>"Bucky, come back, don't, I can't lose you again, not again, I can't." Steve cried out, "We were supposed to have time, now, it was supposed to bring you back to me."</p><p>Steve's hand curled into a fist in Barnes' shirt as he hid his face against an unmoving chest.</p><p>"Steve." Tony said softly as he forced his feet forward.</p><p>He knelt next to Steve to touch his shoulder and told himself not to take the flinch to heart.</p><p>"Steve." Tony said again, "He's gone, come on."</p><p>Tony reached out to pull Steve away but Steve held tighter, shaking his head.</p><p>"No! No, please, I can't, I can't lose him again, I can't do this alone anymore." Steve sobbed. </p><p>Tony managed to pull Steve's upper body away from Barnes.</p><p>Steve let out an anguished wail that echoed over the silent battlefield.</p><p>"No! I can't leave him again, I can't! Let me go!" Steve yelled as Tony got a better grip on him to pull him away.</p><p>Tony stumbled a few feet before Steve went entirely limp body giving out, taking Tony down to his knees with him.</p><p>Tony's arm was across his chest and Steve's face found itself against his arm as he sobbed, loud and long, hands clutching at Tony's bicep and shoulder as he stared at Barnes' body.</p><p>"Please, please, let me stay with him, please don't make me leave him again." Steve begged.</p><p>"Steve." Tony said quietly, but he didn't know what else to say, what else could be said, what do you say to someone that has lost the same person so many times.</p><p>"We were supposed to have time, Tony." Steve whispered, "We were supposed to fix it, we were supposed to win."</p><p>"We did, Steve, we did win, Thanos is dead." Tony told him.</p><p>Steve's head rested heavily against Tony's arm, gaze never moving from Barnes.</p><p>"It doesn't feel like winning." Steve whispered.</p><p>Tony couldn't help looking at Peter, who stood silently behind them, there were tears making their way silently down his cheeks as he covered his mouth to silence his own sobs, before the boy breathed in and out to steady his voice before speaking calmly into his comm unit.</p><p>"Still looking, no sign yet." Peter said and then looked at Tony.</p><p>Tony nodded, but a part of him couldn't help disagree with Steve, Peter was back, all the people they lost in the Snap were back, Steve was just being his selfish self.</p><p>They had won damn it.</p><p>Tony turned back to Steve to tell him that.</p><p>"We were supposed to get married." Steve let out softly.</p><p>And Tony couldn't breath.</p><p>"When the war was over, were were gonna get married, Peggy agreed to pretending so no one'd look twice. We were gonna be happy." Steve squeezed around his arm, Tony wasn't sure he meant to, "Then he fell, and I didn't go after him, I left him there in the mountains, I left him."</p><p>Steve let out another sobbing breath, and kept speaking, "Then I crashed the plane, I thought, I thought 'at least he'll be on the other side waiting for me' I thought I'd get to see him again, then they woke me up, and I wished so badly that they didn't, that they'd just have left me in the ice." </p><p>Tony couldn't breath, what was Steve saying? How hadn't anyone noticed that Captain America was depressed, but then he remembered his own treatment of the man, the defensive way he'd responded, damnit, Tony should have noticed that it was a front, as his own had been, but then, no one really wanted to see their Heroes as people.</p><p>"And then I got him back." Steve whined, "I got him back, and it didn't matter that he didn't remember who I was, it didn't matter if he never did, he was alive." </p><p>Steve shook with the force of his sobs.</p><p>"Do you know what it's like, Tony, when you can't breath, when you hold your breath underwater and then someone holds you down and you can't come up and you don't have any air left, do you know the feeling when they let you come up, and you can breath again and it's the most beautiful thing in the world?" Steve asked, "I saw him on that street and I could breath again, everything was going to be alright."</p><p>Steve didn't look at Tony, only shifted like he was going to try getting to Barnes again and Tony tightened his grip and braced himself for the struggle, but Steve must have felt it because he went limp again.</p><p>"And then...." Steve didn't continue, Tony knew what happened then, Natasha had told them and then Ultron and the Accords and Steve's fugitive days.</p><p>"He chose to go away, he didn't want to be used anymore, and I got it, I understood, I did. He remembered more each visit. He remembered that we were gonna get married." Steve whispered, "We were gonna do it, T'Challa said he'd marry us."</p><p>Steve fell silent as Peter lied into his comm unit again.</p><p>"It was gonna be perfect." Steve said softly, "Was gonna ask you if you'd come."</p><p>Tony felt his breath hitch, really, Steve was going to invite him?</p><p>"Then the Spaceship happened and the battle in Wakanda and..." Steve drew in a ragged breath, "He said my name, 'was the last thing I heard him say, he sounded so scared, Tony. He looked at me like I could save him and I couldn't, spent five years knowing I couldn't save him, just like the last time."</p><p>Tony remembered losing Peter on Titan, remembered his words, the feel of him just vanishing from his arms.</p><p>"Steve, you did your best." Tony tried to assure him.</p><p>"It wasn't enough, my best wasn't enough, it never is." Steve pulled away from Tony's hold to look at Tony and Tony let him, the only clean spots on his face were the tear tracks that trailed from his eyes.</p><p>"I can't leave him, Tony, not this time, not again." Steve whispered, brokenly as he wrapped his arms around himself as though that would somehow hold him together.</p><p>"Steve, you can't just give up." Tony snapped at him.</p><p>"I gave up a long time ago, Tony, I gave up when I lost him in those mountains, I never meant to make it off that plane." Steve told him and Tony's heart broke.</p><p>It broke because he knew what it was like to get that low, he'd had Pepper and Rhodey to drag him up, who had Steve had? The Avengers?</p><p>Natasha pushing him into dates he didn't want, Tony acting like an ass everytime Avenging was needed, Bruce running away when all was done, Thor going off to Asgard, and Clint going home to his wife and kids?</p><p>What had Steve had those last few years they we a team, hope that Barnes might remember they were friends at the least?</p><p>Tony knew that a man could only last so long on hope and a prayer.</p><p>"Please, Tony." Steve pleaded as tears began falling again, "Just let me stay with him, please."</p><p>Tony looked away from that stare, looked down at where his hands were still holding Steve's wrists in his hands, looked at the whirl of burns that now traveled up his right arm, they didn't hurt and Tony wondered why.</p><p>"Please, Tony, please." Steve begged him, and it sounded wrong to hear the man beg, though Tony had once dreamed of him begging for forgiveness.r<br/>Tony let his wrists go and looked at him.</p><p>Tony felt like saying something but what could he say?</p><p>Tony got up and watched Steve literally crawl back to Barnes, like he didn't have the strength to get up, and maybe he didn't.</p><p>What could Tony say to Steve? Peter was slowly, silently creeping up to tuck himself under his arm, Pepper was alive and his little girl was waiting at home with Happy for him to come read her a bedtime story. Tony got to have his happy ending.</p><p>Tony watched Steve lay himself along Barnes' body, in the same position that he had been found in, head on Barnes' shoulder, hand over an un-beating heart.</p><p>Was it more or less heartbreaking that Steve was no longer asking him to come back to him? Tony wondered as he watched the man begin sobbing again, fingers curling in Barnes' shirt as his body shook with the force of them.</p><p>Tony forced himself to turn away, forced himself to walk, to leave Steve to his grief.</p><p>He'd find something to tell the others, something to tell Wilson when someone found the bodies, because Tony knew a heart could only break so much before it gave out and he had a feeling that Steve's wasn't going to be able to mend this time.</p><p>Tony found himself pausing a moment, found himself turning back to where Steve lay next to Barnes.</p><p>For the first time since he met the man he didn't see the Hero of his childhood, the legend of his Father's tales, in that moment, watching Steve grieve for the love of his life that had been taken and kept from him so many times, Tony saw Steve for what he was, a man who had just lost everything.</p><p>And Tony would never be able to forget what Steve had said, 'We were gonna get married.' And 'We were supposed to have time.' </p><p>And wasn't it just heartbreaking that they never got either.</p><p>---</p><p>A/n: i just... I have no excuse, it was just supposed to be a short sad thing and it was supposed to be Bucky's grief over a dead Steve and then Steve... </p><p>Just... This one made me cry, and i don't cry easy and i am so sorry.</p><p>I don't know where this came from, i really don't.</p><p>Sorry again.</p>
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